A blog about technology media and society. That got sidetracked by silliness and politics. And then further by a small person called Daisy.

August 31, 2002

Hands Dirtied

Gosh, last night was a shock. The technical crew for the play my missus is directing were involved in a carcrash en route to the venue, so I ended up having to fly the lighting desk and do all the sound stuff.

I was utterly terrified.

But it's amazing how quickly stuff like this comes back to you - after the first cue had gone okay it was just like being back at university working with TSG. It was really suprising how much of that excitement returned, and I realised how much I missed it. Doing dance music quietly and slowly isn't quite the same as being part of a team making big noise and big enjoyment.

Remember to tag them first for identification purposes.

August 28, 2002

Surely some mistake?

I can't take posters for the new Matt Damon film Bourne Identity seriously.

It just sounds far too much like an early 80s sitcom - probably BBC1 on Friday evenings - starring Geoffrey Palmer or someone similar. Perhaps Nicholas Lyndhurst. They'd be called Norman Bourne, and have a bad memory or something, resulting in all sorts of hilarious japes...

Law of conservation of Oblomov

It's refreshing to know that, just as Danny O'Brien decides he needs to get off his arse and take things a bit more seriously, I've now been returned to the world of sitting around the house in my dressing gown till lunchtime, poking around for cool things to do on the net.

Makeover

Annoyingly, the old version of my stylesheet has got stuck in my ISP's cache somewhere, and I can't get it out. So while you lot are able to see it in all its grey -and-red glory, I'm stuck with it in 'MT out of the box' colours. Thank heavens for being able to set up a copy of Apache on OS X or I'd not be able to see what I was doing!

Blog content in disguise

Well, lots of us sort of gone a bit of the way there, using 'random image of the day' or whatever, but I've got to admit I'm a huge convert to Luminescent.org - a blog that's just photos and a place for associated comments.

August 23, 2002

Is it just me...

A beautiful sight

Over the road, a removal van has pulled up. Someone's moving out of their house, just like we're going to (fingers crossed and touch wood) in five or six weeks time. It brings a great joy to my heart to think of that.

House move episode 8941

Hurrah for the ma

The matriarch of the family today got herself a literary agent. Result.

There are two things this makes me think:
1) An agent has to make you enough more money than their cut
2) That that period of time they free up now you're note dealing with shite has to now be available for you to do the all-important creative bit.

Thankfully, both of these appear to *already* be the case with this one.

August 21, 2002

That reminds me...

Online 'Sliding Doors'

Only just found that the fab Thea (who I met in Banff) has her own blog...just as she buys thea.com.

She and I had some really interesting chats while we were there - she's been doing this sort of thing for a long time, and her comments on 'so here I am, still trying to do wild things with images on computer screens and waiting for a bit of technology that's going to change it all' gave me a lot of perspective on my own hunt for interactive drama.

Consequences

I'm rather flattered, yet rather intimidated, to have been asked to be one of the contributors to the Wherever You Are 'game' of Consequences. (My stuff can't be *that* interesting surely? I mean I'm up against the likes of Meg not.so.soft Pickard here!)

August 19, 2002

Most interesting album in ages

I really wasn't expecting to be impressed by the range of sonic textures in an R&B album. Until I heard the new one by Ms Dynamite. Far more effort than you'd expect for one these things. Think about the sort of strangeness that Madonna's recently had going on, but apply that sound and feel to yer generic urban track.

Minor Bit of Good News

Doing My Head In

I've decided I need to get out.

I simply can't sit in the office I used to work in, surrounded by everyone I used to work with, watching them do the work I used to do. I've realised I'm basically torturing myself under the guise of 'being around in case I'm needed'. Which I'm not.

At my weekly staff meetings, I'm not going to have anything to say, because I no longer know what they're working on.

Placebo beware

Well that has to be one of the most surreal experiences of my life. So on Friday I get a call from a TV production company that might be offering me work, asking if I'd like to come up to Edinburgh on Monday to come to a party. Oh, and they'd pay.

Thoughts of networking opportunities, the train journey along the coast past Berwick, and drinking with some dear friends persuaded me that this was a good idea...and hey, if I can't take advantage of stuff like that in my current position, when can I?

And so it was that I got my first taste of real TV production. Running round Edinburgh in a cab to borrow cameras, or to buy a saw and spraycans of black paint so we could cover up a grille on the stage so Nancy Sinatra wouldn't fall through it. No, as you can tell, the boots weren't made for walking.

An exhilerating experience - Nancy was fab, and turned out to be a truly friendly and down-to-earth person (there will be pictures of the two of us on here soon, I promise) and I rediscovered the twin joy of a pint of 80-shilling and a single malt. Oh Scotland, you got it *so* right.

Life Improvement Shocker

MP3 Heaven

Have finally started thinning out on the 'albums I must have with me at all times' MP3 ripping now. It's starting to get a bit more selective about which tracks I'm actually going to bring onto the laptop. (At 6 days and 14 hours of material so far...)

However, I've been taking the opportunity to go through and start bringing in all of my fave singles - and it's been a joy. Lots of ghastly pop I knew I'd never buy the album of, but for some drum loop or bassline or other I *had* to have it. (Belinda Carlisle's Big Scary Animal, or Anastacia's I'mOut Of Love for example)

And there have been credible rediscoveries too...

Fatboy Slim's "Everybody Loves A Filter" is one of the most fabulously joyous versions of one of his most fabulously joyous tracks - and I'd not heard it for two years!

Small improvements, loosely joined

The buyer for our house pulled out. After much agonising we decided we were going to tell the people we were buying from after all...and they took it kind of well, all things considered. We've got at least a fortnight before we have to get seriously stressed about it, and hopefully the housing market will pick up again now that people are starting to come back from holidays.

BlogTree musings (revised)

I find myself wishing I could change my parents so my siblings were the blogs I read. Apologies Euan, NTK and b3ta.

I think I may be an unusual blogger though - I read very few blogs before I started doing this. It's nearly all down to Euan's persuasion. So I wonder whether blogtree should be around nature or nurture?

August 03, 2002

I [verb] [inane waffle]

I AM: more bitter and unhappy than I first appear.
I THINK: almost entirely about the things I've done wrong that don't matter.
I KNOW: that I can't go through with hurting anyone, and they can tell.
I WANT: to hate my limitations less
I HAVE: a bit of a hangover
I WISH: I could talk to people about themselves
I HATE: people who are careless - as in acting without care for others.
I MISS: being able to stay up late and get up unaffected
I FEAR: being found out as not being as clever as I thought I was
I HEAR: rain, bjork, my wife sleeping and the joyous yaps of a cat.
I SEARCH: for ways to work harder and play harder, rather than this wierd grey all-day work-meets-home thing I currently do
I WONDER: if it *was* something I did
I REGRET: not being good at sport
I LOVE: the missus, the cats, friends and family, acquiring new gadgets
I ACHE: across my shoulders - the home for all my stress
I CARE: too much whether people like me
I ALWAYS: am looking to see what else is going on
I AM NOT: a geek
I DANCE: under extreme duress, but with gusto
I SING: better than I think, I'm told. It's the choice of material
I CRY: nowhere near as often as I need to
I DO NOT ALWAYS: do the things I tell people I'm going to
I FIGHT: to prove that my team have better ideas than the next guy, and should be rewarded
I WRITE: self-referential crap that occasionally has a veneer of authenticity or profundity
I WIN: if there's a 'Hundred Reasons Singer Lookalike' competition
I LOSE: pens
I CONFUSE: some people by talking far too fast about things I think I've already explained
I LISTEN: when I'm not distracted by thinking about the thing you've just told me
I CAN USUALLY BE FOUND: true.
I NEED: someone to tell me it's all going to be all right in the end
I AM HAPPY ABOUT: this macintosh laptop, and having such a wonderful wife - even though she's far too sad at the moment.
I SHOULD: do more and worry less.